Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/22

 6 HISTORY OF GREECE. mg of the legendary past suitable to the circumstances of the historical present. Above all, this legend makes out in favor of the Dorians ar-.d their kings a mythical title to their Peloponnesian establishments; Argos, Sparta, and Messene are presented as rightfully belong- ing, and restored by just retribution, to the children of Herakles. It was to them that Zeus had specially given the territory of Sparta; the Dorians came in as their subjects and auxiliaries. 1 Plato gives a very different version of the legend, but we find that he, too, turns the story in such a manner as to embody a claim of right on the part of the conquerors. According to him, the Achgeans, who returned from the capture of Troy, found among their fellow-citizens at home the race which had grown up during their absence an aversion to readmit them: after a fruitless endeavor to make good their rights, they were at last expelled, but not without much contest and bloodshed. A leader named Dorieus, collected all these exiles into one body, and from him they received the name of Dorians instead of Achoeans ; then marching back, under the conduct of the Herakleids into Pelo- ponnesus, they recovered by force the possessions from which they had been shut out, and constituted the three Dorian establish- ments under the separate Ilerakleid brothers, at Argos, Sparta, and Messene. These three fraternal dynasties were founded upon a scheme of intimate union and sworn alliance one with the other, for the purpose of resisting any attack which might be made upon them from Asia, 2 either by the remaining Trojans or by their allies. Such is the story as Plato believed it ; materially different in 1 Tyrtaeus, Fragm. Avrdf yap Kpoviuv, Ka^iars^avov ir6ai 'Hoar, Zevf 'HpaK/la'cJauf TqvSe deduice irohiv Olcrtv ufj.a, irpo'XnrovTef 'Epiveov t/vefioevTa, Evpsiav He/loTTof VTJGOV uiptKo/te-da. In a similar manner Pindar says that Apollo had planted the sons of Herakles, jointly with those of ^Egimius, at Sparta, Argos, and Pylus (Pyth. v. 93). Isokrates (Or. vi. Archidamus, p. 120) makes out a good title by a different line of mythical reasoning. There seem to have been also stories contain- ing mythical reasons why the Herakleids did not acquire possession of Ai ca- dia (Polysen. i. 7). 1 riato, Legg, iii. 6-7, pp. 682-686.